The Sun-Sentinel has published a detailed timeline of the Parkland school shooting last February. It's titled "Unprepared and Overwhelmed", which is a pretty good summation of the response by school and law enforcement authorities to the crisis. It makes terrifying reading for anyone who has kids at school today. If the authorities in Broward County screwed up so badly, are the authorities in your area likely to do better? How can you be sure?
Two bloggers have posted their responses to the report. I'm going to quote from both of them, and urge you to click over to the source to read the rest of their comments.
First, Greg Ellifritz, whom we've met in these pages several times before, pulls no punches.
When you read this, you will be absolutely sickened by the ineptitude displayed by both school staff and sheriff’s deputies.
The deputies’ conduct was inexcusable (and far worse than what was originally reported), but we can’t put everything on them.
School staff had five opportunities to call for a lockdown before any deputy was even contacted. Four staff “security monitors” with radios saw who they recognized as the “crazy boy” walking around school grounds with a rifle. One of those staff members saw the rifle-armed former student on two different occasions. None of these security monitors got on the radio to order a lockdown or to notify police.
. . .
It’s clear from this article that the cops and the school staff will not effectively protect the children. Your kids are on their own. Do not expect other police agencies or schools to provide significantly better responses. I’ve trained a lot of schools and cops on active killer topics over the years. I would estimate that 95% of the police departments and school staff members I’ve dealt with would not respond any better than the folks described in this article.
. . .
This was one of the worst responses to a school shooting that I have seen in my two decade police career. Readers, are you doing anything to ensure that your cops and schools don’t act the exact same way? It is only intense pressure from concerned citizens, constituents, and voters that will force government entities to improve their response plans and training.
There's more at the link, including an analysis of some of the shooter's actions and some of the errors made by authorities. Greg also provides a link to download the full 400-page final report on the shooting. It might be of professional interest to some readers.
Next, Gun Free Zone has a long and vituperative commentary.
I will warn you, take a blood thinner before you read this. I will not be held responsible for any heart attacks or strokes had from the following post.
. . .
I swear, when Scot Peterson dies, I will personally carve “Chicken **** Coward” above his name on his headstone ... a lying, feckless, ****less, yellow-bellied, chicken ****, ****ing coward, who tried to cover his own *** when asked about his cowardly bull****.
. . .
Every one of these Deputies, as well as Sheriff Israel himself, should be charged as accessories to the murder of these 17 people. This isn’t just incompetence, they really helped Cruz kill so many so fast ... How do you get so many people on one department who hear gun shots and decided to do nothing about it?
. . .
Not one person who was responsible for this **** show has been fired, and several have been promoted.
The NRA was blamed, and anti-guns bills were passed into law.
The Democrat party still rules the roost in Broward County.
Nothing has changed and I doubt anything will.
The sardonic take away from all of this is, if you want to make yourself famous as a school shooter, just pick a place in unincorporated Broward County to do it, the BSO will make it easy for you.
Again, more at the link.
I won't bother to add my own comments. The two bloggers cited above have already said all that's necessary.
Peter
11 comments:
For a different response by law enforcement, read about the Aztec, NM school shooting. The first two officers on scene broke a window and climbed in. They then went hunting the shooter.
Do you have thoughts about whether responses like this one, along with many other shortcomings in public education, are reasons to send kids to private school or to home school them?
Now that we know the truth behind it all, which all was mostly known within 12 hours of the shooting, leaving only the finer details and the fact that the shooter's mom was the one who bought the guns for her insane, out-of-control so where's the prosecution of her for straw purchasing, hmmmm?, can we (meaning the average citizen, especially those between the ages of 18 and 21) get our gun rights back, Governor Scott? Please, you worthless male reproductive unit (that is only slightly better than the jerk you will be replacing as Senator, you friggin IDIOT!!!)
And I am still waiting on mass apologies from the media, most politicians, the whole of Broward County...
Crickets... I only hear crickets....
Grrrrrrrrr….
Insane, out-of-control SON!!!!
Dagnabit, stupid fingers not listening to brain...
For another look at how it happened, read this link detailing how Obama & Holder changed the law enforcement operation in Broward County causing the Parkland shooting.
In my opinion, the four police didn't do anything because they didn't want to face a Ferguson, Missouri witch hunt sponsored by Obama. Therefore, people died to maintain the politically correct narrative.
The reason this is not being made public by the media or anyone really is that it does not matter, the narrative has already been put out of BAN teh gunz and NRAZ bad, Republicans Bad, etc. If there was genuine concern about the slaughter that happened we would see or have heard the truth about this coming out a lot sooner. Also this throws the narrative off about you subjects don't need any stinkin guns because the police are only a phone call away to save the day with their guns. Never mind that the courts time and time again affirm that the police are under no obligation to protect anyone. (This is why I think there has been no repercussions about how the police botched this, there can't be any.) As per usual the media is at least culpable in this by the disinformation they pass out, but folks just don't want to hear the truth either. I'm not one to be on a lot of conspiracy theories but between this one and the Vegas shooting it sure could give openings for those to come about. If you took this event and tried to make a movie out of it no one would belief this many things and people were totally incompetent and criminally liable.
When parents hunt down and kill the worthless staff and cops and politicians that enabled this sort of situation, then you might see a change. Barring that sort of payback, nothing good will happen...
Worst of all, the Broward Courts found that the deputies and school staff "had no duty to protect" the students. The civil suits filed by parents were tossed out of court and again there is no harm, no foul. Every single officer involved and school staff involved should be tarred and feathered and fired and fed to alligators.
@HMS Defiant,
What do you have against alligators?
Not that I disagree with your sentiments, but the "no duty to protect" idea has been Supreme Court precedent for a long time; I first ran into it at least 20 years ago. I happen to think that an argument could be made the IN THIS CASE it should be set aside, as the Police Department had accepted duties that ran counter to it, but the idea isn't new and startling.
In general, the Parkland shooting is the perfect argument AGAINST gun control; it modeled perfectly the situation the Gun Controllers want to make the norm. The State was the only holder of legal weapons. The State was trusted to make judgements about who was dangerous to the public and guard the children thereby, and the State stomped on its own dong with cleats.
The Second Amendment exists because, by its very nature, the State is incompetent to deal with minor threats. The State is always more concerned with maintaining the appearance of peace and order to actually make the kind of early decisions that might support peace and order. It is bad at judgement, nuance, and initiative. It is good at massed brute force, which is why it does OK at simple tasks like clobbering large numbers of Germans when they get uppity. (also, the history of privatizing the military is a scary one).
The answer to Gun Control is "That might be a good idea if the State were effective and trustworthy. It isn't."
From Ellifritz: "This was one of the worst responses to a school shooting that I have seen in my two decade police career."
First, there's little in the detailed report to surprise anyone who looked closely at the event with unbiased eyes.
Second, while this travesty involved an event at a school, is there any reason to believe government, including police agencies, would perform better if the event were to occur at a supermarket, public library, football stadium or big box store? Incompetence, cowardice and malfeasance is universal and has no geo-limiting component.
Ellifritz adds: "It’s clear from this article that the cops and the school staff will not effectively protect the children. Your kids are on their own."
So are the rest of us no matter where we are. Heed his words.
Link to the current version Report cover date 2 January.
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/Meetings/2019/January/Documents/MSD-Report-Public-Version.aspx
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